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Housman is one of my heroes and always has been. He was a detestable and miserable man. Arrogant, unspeakably lonely, cruel, and so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a great scholar.

A. E. Housman

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A. E. Housman
Age: 77 †
Born: 1859
Born: January 1
Died: 1936
Died: January 1
Classical Philologist
Classical Scholar
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Worcs
A. E. Housman
Poet
Scholar
Great
Arrogant
Always
Cruel
Men
Heroes
Unspeakably
Think
Miserable
Detestable
Thinking
Lonely
Marvellous
Absolutely
Minor
Hero
Minors

More quotes by A. E. Housman

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Who made the world I cannot tell 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.
A. E. Housman
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Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A. E. Housman
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And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
A. E. Housman
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Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A. E. Housman
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The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers' meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady So I was ready When trouble came.
A. E. Housman
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Clay lies still, but blood's a rover Breath's aware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey's over then there'll be time enough to sleep.
A. E. Housman
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If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude.
A. E. Housman
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Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again.
A. E. Housman
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Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
A. E. Housman
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There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. Housman
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I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist) and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
A. E. Housman
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They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
A. E. Housman
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To justify God's ways to man.
A. E. Housman
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Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
A. E. Housman
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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
A. E. Housman
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All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
A. E. Housman
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The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. Housman
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Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
A. E. Housman
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Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.
A. E. Housman
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These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead. The British regulars who made the retreat from Mons, beginning August 24, 1914.
A. E. Housman